Four public sector insurance companies have launched a common mechanism for compromise settlement of motor third party claims centre in Kochi, with plans to open 50 such centres all over India this year to reduce pendency of motor accident cases and ensure speedier settlement.

A similar centre was opened in Cuttack in Eastern region in March 2011 and Rs2.93 crore disbursed as settlement so far. Two other pilot centres would be opened at Mehsana and Jaipur.

Presently, over 10 lakh accident cases are pending against these four insurance companies-National Insurance Company Ltd, New India Assurance Company Ltd, Oriental Insurance Company Ltd and United India Insurance Company Ltd before various tribunals in the country, of which 1 lakh are in Kerala.

The investment objective of the scheme would be to achieve growth of capital through investments made in a basket of debt/fixed income securities maturing on or before the maturity of the scheme. The tenure of the scheme is 91 days.

The new issue closes on 9th August. The minimum investment amount is Rs5,000.

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"Fiscal capacities of Japan, India, Malaysia, Taiwan and New Zealand have shrunk relative to pre-2008 level," ratings agency S&P in its report on Asia-Pacific Sovereigns. It added that if a renewed slowdown comes, it would create a deeper and more prolonged impact

New Delhi: Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) today cautioned that it could lower the sovereign ratings of countries like India, Japan and Malaysia, which are still to come out of the economic meltdown of 2008, reports PTI.

"The implications for sovereign creditworthiness in the Asia-Pacific would likely be more negative than previously experienced and a larger number of negative rating actions would follow," S&P said in its report on Asia-Pacific Sovereigns.

"Fiscal capacities of Japan, India, Malaysia, Taiwan and New Zealand have shrunk relative to pre-2008 level," it said, adding that these countries continue to bear the scars of the downturn.

The governments, it said, would be required to use their own revenue streams to support their economies and financial sector once again.

It further said that if a renewed slowdown comes, it would create a deeper and more prolonged impact.

At the time of the global financial crisis in 2008, several countries, including India, had rolled out stimulus packages facilitating monetary expansion and lower taxes to mitigate the impact of the slowdown.

At that time, India had provided three fiscal stimulus packages totalling Rs1.86 lakh crore, which helped the economy clock a growth of 8% in 2009-10, as against 6.8% in 2008-09. Prior to the crisis, the Indian economy had been expanding at a growth rate of over 9% over a three-year period.

Late on Friday, global ratings agency S&P downgraded its US sovereign rating to AA+ from AAA, with a negative outlook.